


This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine

by imperatrixxx



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ambiguously light Ben, Angst, Betrayal, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Lies, M/M, Mama Bear Leia, So much angst, bed sharing, did I mention the angst?, post-TFA, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-27 01:24:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6263998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperatrixxx/pseuds/imperatrixxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe Dameron had loved and mourned Ben Solo. Now, years later, the young man he believed dead has been rescued from the First Order and returned home. Poe finds himself both drawn to and unnerved by Ben. His heart tells him one thing, his instincts another. Rey is away training with Luke Skywalker, Finn is in a coma, and no one is telling Poe the truth.  This is the story of how Poe copes with the inevitable revelation that his first love is also Kylo Ren, the man who tortured him and terrorized the galaxy, and how Ben struggles to transcend his past.</p><p>I wanted to write a story in which the enormity of Ben’s crimes follows him home, in which forgiveness is painful and hard-won, and in which shy, awkward Ben, trying to walk in the light, is still also Kylo Ren, sinister and more than a little terrifying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Shakespeare, _The Tempest_.

He slid around the edges of the base, an elongated evening shadow of a man.

Poe’s heart had stuttered and skipped, bringing his body to a standstill, forcing him to lean against the body of his X-wing – _remember how to breathe_ – when he had heard the whisper: General Organa’s child – _his_ Ben – had returned from the dead.

Snap, still holding his helmet, was speaking to Jess in a hushed tone. The secret mission to Ilum in the Unknown Regions to liberate a First Order reconditioning camp had recovered not only the captured Resistance fighters, but a boy long gone, a man now, pale and silent as a ghost. Poe could see it in his mind: the general emerging from her troop transporter to retrieve him from the rubble of the icy planet’s prison, and then, curved against the small woman, a lanky figure, staggering through the tumbled blocks of stone.

That night, Poe had stood in front of the general’s house for a long time, staring at the windows, thinking of Ben moving through those golden squares of light. He had returned to his quarters, afraid to close his eyes, but the river of sleep had taken him in its dark and dreamless currents.

And now, Poe glimpsed or imagined Ben around every corner. There was a fist clenched in his chest. A coiling tendril of hope – a desperate longing to see, to touch, to know – strangled by the fear of what he would find.

*

“Poe,” the general’s warm voice greeted him, and when he turned around from his fighter – hands covered in grease – there, behind her, stood the man himself, all gangly limbs and awkward angles, hair falling over his face.

“You’re so tall,” Poe stammered.

“You’re not.” The voice was deeper than Poe remembered. The tiniest suggestion of a smile curled at the corner of the man’s mouth, and suddenly the hulking stranger with the scarred face was, impossibly and undeniably, Ben.

Poe stepped towards him, needing to feel him solid and warm and _real_ , and reached out to grasp his bicep. Ben regarded his hand for a moment, and then covered it with his own. Then, without conscious thought, Poe had collapsed into him, and been enfolded in his long arms. A wild creature was hammering against the cage of Poe's chest. His synapses blazed with a bright blade of yearning and a sharp undercurrent of alarm. Ben smelled not of earth and rain, as before, but of durasteel and titanium. Poe leaned into Ben’s unexpectedly broad torso and closed his eyes, trying to block out everything else.

*

Poe spent most days training with his squadron, working on his fighter, and, sitting beside Finn’s pod in the medical center. Sometimes he talked about his day or read the letters that Rey wrote to Finn about her training with Luke. At other times he simply sat there, holding his hand and sharing the man’s deep silence. The clockwork rise and fall of his breath was a comfort. He will wake up, Poe told himself, borrowing Rey’s fierce optimism, one day he will wake up.

This evening, Poe left BB-8 by Finn’s bedside, and walked to General Organa’s house on the outskirts of the base. The light was turning rose-gold and his boots kicked up clouds of dust. The grass at the edges of the airfield had yellowed and died. Poe’s feet took him the long way around and the sky was a grainy purple-blue by the time he arrived at the general's door. She welcomed him inside and led him through to the back garden where Ben was sitting.

“Hey,” Poe took in the seated figure, casually dressed in a charcoal grey tunic and black leggings, and then looked away, uncharacteristically shy.

“Sit down,” Ben indicated the vacant chair. His voice was soft and sonorous, with that edge of humor Poe remembered. His features, sliced into shadows by the growing dusk, were oddly matched, but compelling; he had grown into his unusual looks. His dark eyes, when he caught Poe looking, were intense but soft.

“Where do we begin?” Poe asked him.

“I don’t know. There is a lot I can’t talk about yet.”

“I can wait.” Poe tentatively reached for him. “I missed you so much.”

Ben took Poe’s hand and brushed his lips over his knuckles, and Poe shivered. “I missed you too. Almost every day.”

The gloaming faded into night and momentary constellations flared and died as fireflies flickered among the trees. Only the chirruping of small amphibians and the rhythmic whir of insects punctuated the dark.

*

“You’re always touching me.” Ben was sitting next to Poe on the sofa watching a holodrama. Ben's mother sat in an armchair, working on her datapad.

“Does it bother you?” Poe drew his hand back from Ben’s knee.

“Not at all,” Ben grabbed Poe’s hand and returned it to his knee. “I’m just not used to it. The First Order wasn’t very touchy-feely.” He snuggled into Poe to emphasize his point.

Poe glanced up, self-conscious about this display of affection in front of his general, but her gaze was fixed on Ben. Her eyes were flinty, her mouth creased in a thin line. _She_ never touches him, Poe thought.

After the holodrama finished, Ben walked Poe to the doorstep and turned to him. He ran his thumb over Poe’s lips. “You were the first boy I ever kissed.” And then Ben was pressing his lips against Poe's, hesitantly at first, until Poe ran his fingers through his hair and pulled him closer. Poe’s blood was beating too loudly in his ears and his mouth tasted of salt and copper. When he pulled back, Ben was staring at him with feral intensity. Poe’s body was ignited with need, and a tiny voice in the back of his head was shouting _run, run, run_. Poe stumbled into the darkness.

*

“I know you care for my son,” General Organa paused, leaning against her desk, “and I know you were close as boys.” Poe nodded. He watched the dust motes spinning in the buttery sunlight, waiting for her to make her point. Poe noticed the shadows under her eyes. She seemed smaller, worn. “But there’s a lot you don’t know about the last fifteen years.”

“Has he talked to you about what happened?”

“A little. And I can piece the rest together. I hope he chooses to tell you.”

Poe tried to tamp down his imagination, which threatened to overwhelm him with images of Ben in the First Order prison. Had the Knights of Ren taken him alive because he was the most powerful of Luke's padawans, or because, with his blazing adolescent anger, he seemed the most likely to be corrupted? How had they tried to fuel that rage that could lead a Jedi to the dark side?

“I don’t think he is ready for any kind of relationship,” continued the general.

“I won’t hurt him,” Poe protested.

“It’s not him I’m worried about.”

*

“Your mother doesn’t approve.” Poe and Ben were snuggling on the sofa in Poe's apartment.

“She always thought you were too nice for me.”

“She’s probably right,” Poe softened the edge of his words by nuzzling Ben's neck.

“Seriously, though,” Ben pushed Poe away, “when you knew me, I was a child. You don’t know what I am.” 

"I don't know what happened to you," Poe conceded, "but I know that you resisted, and that you returned to us. To me."

"The Ben you knew is gone." His voice was flat, cold.

Poe put his head in his hands and focused on his breath until he was calm. Teenage Ben had been just like this, especially toward the end – running hot and cold – shy, gentle and awkward, then lashing out in fury. “That's funny, because you seem exactly the same. Sweet one moment, and angry the next.” 

“I don’t know what you ever saw in me,” Ben spat with a self-pity so familiar, that Poe’s irritation melted away.

“I loved you, idiot.” Poe wriggled an arm around the scowling man’s waist and pulled him close. Ben resisted momentarily and then relented, as he always had, burying his nose in Poe’s hair. “I still do.”

Ben cradled Poe’s face in his large hands. His eyes bored into Poe as if he could see his thoughts, and perhaps he could. Poe felt like a bug under the microscope. Wings of arousal or anxiety fluttered in his belly.

“No matter what?”

Poe nodded, and suddenly Ben was all around him, stealing his breath in a crushing embrace.


	2. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe is in love, but not happily. His subconscious recognizes the shapes his waking mind does not. Ben tries to confess his sins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nick Cave's [Sweetheart Come](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8L2qsMJX20) is the song for this chapter.

A saw-toothed scream tore itself from his throat. Poe awoke to the sound of his own cry. He couldn’t move his limbs, and his temple was sticky with congealed blood. Something stood in the corner, stooped and shadowy, a tattered fragment of night, faceless and alien, yet completely familiar. The thing stalked towards him, and with a gesture, it parted the veils of his mind, sliced open his very self, and ripped his soul from him.

Poe awoke again, this time into his room, gulping for air. He was surrounded by his familiar things. An old Rebel pilot’s helmet like the one his mother had worn, his flight manuals, and BB-8 chirping reassuringly at him.

The nightmares were getting worse.

*

When Poe flew, his head was clear of everything but _now_ , one perfect eternal moment on which all his attention was focused. Lately, though, when he returned to earth, a blood-buzzing anxiety would rise up to deafen him. He thought of Ben constantly, a fretful thrumming of want and need. He was intoxicated, but not euphoric. Shadows haunted his peripheral vision.

Craving solitude, he usually found open fields where he could turn his face to the canopy of sky, but today he pushed into the forest that fringed the base. He hiked out to a rock pool where a waterfall, now slowed to a mere trickle, splashed over mossy boulders and let the forest’s living stillness slow his mind. Old grief tormented him, like a shiny white scar torn open to reveal the bloody flesh beneath. He found himself feeling again the sharp bone-deep ache of Ben’s loss. He felt another pang, too in relinquishing the paper cut-out of his dead first love – safe, static, and idealized after all these years.

The real Ben had been morose and angry as well as gentle and loving. And whereas Poe had matured – his arrogance, he liked to think, becoming cocky self-assurance, and his recklessness, courage – Ben still seemed young, awkward, unshaped. He had grown up outside time and place without classmates, friends, and rivals to collide against him, smoothing and polishing his sharp uneven edges like a gem in a rock tumbler.

It wasn’t Ben’s moodiness that troubled Poe, though, but something else, slippery and deep, elusive but essential, that slid through the fingers of his mind. Far beneath the drowning chemical rush of love and lust reborn – his frantic need to hold and consume the man – a worm of dread twisted low in his belly. There was something uncanny in his posture, in the tilt of his head, and the curve of his hand, as though he was not exactly Ben, but a man who walked in his skin. When Poe pushed his fingers against that faint bruise in his mind, his nerves screamed out and a blind memory struggled toward the light like a mushroom erupting through the dark earth.

*

“You look tired, love.” Ben pecked him gently on the lips and pushed a bottle of wine into his hands, as he entered Poe’s apartment.

“I didn’t sleep well.”

“You shouldn’t sleep alone,” Ben pulled Poe in for a slow deep kiss. Poe put down the wine and Ben lifted him up easily and placed him on the kitchen counter. Poe wrapped his arms and legs around the taller man, trying to get as close as possible, all his earlier disquiet forgotten. “Why don’t I spend the night?”

Poe changed into his pajama pants, perhaps putting on a bit of a show, while Ben watched appreciatively. “I could lend you some sleep clothes, but they would probably be too small,” Poe said, embracing the taller man.

“I can sleep in this,” Ben indicated his soft leggings and tunic.

“You could sleep in less,” Poe raised one eyebrow playfully.

“But then we might not sleep,” Ben smiled back. Although they had been making out like hormonal teenagers – like the hormonal teenagers they had been before their separation – they had gone no further. Poe felt like his very marrow was on fire – he wanted to take and love and possess – but, after a little while, Ben always ended up pulling back from their ravenous kisses. Poe had enjoyed many partners and a few relationships over the years. He had almost always found sex pleasurable and uncomplicated, but he realized that Ben’s experiences – if any – had probably been very different. So, despite his constant flirtation and occasional innuendo, he paid careful attention to the fault lines; when Ben tensed slightly beneath Poe’s hands or turned his head away, shyly averting his gaze, Poe gentled his touches, running soothing hands over the other man’s back and shoulders and whispering reassurances in his ear.

Poe got into bed first and Ben folded his long body around him. “I love you so much, Poe Dameron,” he spoke to the darkness. “Always know that.”

 

*

A different dream, one in which he returned to his childhood home to find that the jungle had swallowed it. He walked through the empty rooms, where the walls and floors met each other at impossible angles, until he came to his parents’ bedroom. He heard their soft voices on the other side of the door, but when he pushed it open, it was a gloomy chamber with durasteel walls. In the center, lit from above, was the interrogation chair, its restraints snapped open, ready for his wrists and ankles. As he moved unwillingly towards it, the shadows resolved themselves into a figure, uncoiling and rising to loom over him.

Poe woke screaming. A weight on his chest immobilized him, and above him hung the spectral shape, backlit and featureless. “Hush just a dream,” it said, its voice deep and rich like the loamy earth. Smoky fingers unfurled over his cheek. “Just a dream, love. I’ve got you.” Poe clawed at the figure, then sobbed, clinging to him, as Ben’s sleepy warmth enclosed him. “I can make the dreams go away,” Ben offered. He stroked Poe’s forehead and before Poe could object, he was swaddled in featureless grey sleep.

 

*

Ben dipped the cloudberry into the blue cream, and then licked it, without breaking eye contact. Poe growled and launched himself at Ben, swiping the rest of the cream off his lips with his tongue. Ben pulled Poe down onto his lap. Their kisses became frantic and this time Ben did not pull back, but instead ran his hands up under Poe’s shirt, grasping and squeezing. He kissed and nuzzled Poe’s neck and then bit, hard. Poe yelped. “Let’s go to bed,” Ben murmured against the wet, bruised flesh.

The full moon lay sharp across the white sheets. Ben tugged Poe’s shirt over his head and then straddled him, pushing him back onto the bed so he could stroke and lick and kiss his torso. “Perfect,” he murmured. “You are absolutely perfect.”

When Poe reached for Ben’s own shirt, fumbling to remove it, Ben pinned his wrists over his head, grasping them both in one large hand. “Please,” whined Poe, punctuating his begging by squirming beneath Ben, “I want to see you.”

“I’m not beautiful like you.” Still, Ben released Poe’s hands and let him remove his tunic. Ben was sculpted alabaster, hard and pale. The teenager Poe had known had been skinny and gangly. This adult Ben was lean, without a trace of fat, and powerful. His chest and shoulders were broad, his abdominals hard and defined. Beneath his skin, long, fine muscles stretched and flexed. That skin itself was inscribed with cuts and burns and other marks Poe could not identify – raised pink lines and jagged runnels, where the flesh had been carved out, silvery memories of old injuries in faint cursive, and sharp fresh lacerations. He had a deep burn on one shoulder, and on his flank, bubbled red flesh that had meshed together in a furrowed tangle of scar tissue. Traceries in unknown languages. Poe ran his fingers over the marks and the musculature, as though he could read their meaning through touch.

Ben rolled off Poe and lay, on his side facing him. In the low light, his eyes were pools of dark water.

“Do you think I'm hideous?”

“Of course not.”

“But you’re worried. Scared even.”

Poe felt the feathery whisper of Ben touching his thoughts. “Don’t do that.”

“You used to like it.”

“I don’t anymore. I don’t like anyone else in my head.”

“I’m sorry. Will you tell me why you’re afraid?”

“I’m lost. You don’t make sense to me. I feel that I know you like my second soul, but you're also a stranger.”

Ben reached out to stroke Poe’s cheek. “I should never have let them take me away. I wish I had stayed with you.”

“It’s not too late.”

“I think it is.” Ben stilled his fingers on Poe’s face.

“Why? I’m here. You’re here.” Poe leaned into Ben’s hand, rubbing his stubble against the man’s palm.

“There’s so much I haven’t told you."

"Tell me. Start at the beginning."

"When you knew me, before, Snoke was in my head, talking to me. He saw my anger and my darkness. He chose me.”

“So, he invaded your mind when you were a child. That wasn't your fault.”

“I let him in. I was so tired of being of being scared and powerless. He promised me strength and freedom.”

“Then he captured you and took you to Ilum?”

“Not exactly. I wasn't a prisoner.”

Poe grazed the scars with soft fingertips, feeling the strong muscles beneath, making sense of the paradox written in Ben’s flesh. Gears shifted and meshed in his mind. “He was training you to be a weapon.”

“Yes.”

“Did he succeed?” The moment stretched wide, like the milliseconds between firing a weapon and the impossible brightness of impact.

“Yes. And no. He couldn’t stamp out the light in me, but the darkness was strong too. I did terrible things, unforgiveable things, until I couldn’t stand it anymore, and then I came back.”

Poe closed his eyes. Under his hand he could feel Ben’s pulse, his undeniable living warmth. He felt a deep icy terror, a slow tide of panic and nausea rising in his veins. He wanted to cling to Ben, to make it go away. He wanted Ben closer. He wanted Ben a million miles away. “What did you do?”

“If it tell you, you won’t love me anymore.”

“Ben,” Poe’s voice came out choked and small as he burrowed his head into the man’s neck. “Ben, I love you so much it’s like a weight crushing my chest and I can’t breathe.”

Ben kissed him then, an open-mouthed, hot, desperate kiss, and wrapped his arms around the smaller man’s body, holding him painfully tight. “Tomorrow,” he promised.

Sleep came slowly to Poe, lying in a monster’s arms.

  
*

After he finished working on Black One, Poe went to visit Finn. Sitting with him was like sitting in the forest, feeling the deep quiet filling his lungs. He felt like himself again in flight or with Finn. ~~~~

That morning, Poe had awoken feeling numb, as if wrapped in layers of gauze. Distant klaxons were blaring in his head; someone else’s ship was falling from the sky. Ben had promised they would talk in the evening. “I love you,” he had taken Poe’s face in his hands and stared at him with dark intensity before kissing him goodbye.

Finn, lying motionless in his medpod, was a good listener. “Have you ever been in love?” Poe asked him. “Where you love someone so much, that you would rather that the world hurt you than hurt them? Well, what if you were in love with someone awful? Or someone who had done terrible things? Would you still love them and could you live with yourself if you did?” Poe took Finn’s hand and looked at his friend. When he left the medical center, he knew the cold stomach-churning dread would consume him again. He had a premonition of grief – his Ben had not returned to him. He was going to lose him all over again. So, he sat with Finn as evening faded into night and then the night became quiet around them.

When he felt the slight pressure in his hand, he dismissed it as imagination, but it happened a second time. Finn’s eyes blinked open, and a slow radiant smile blossomed across his face. Poe felt his own face split open with answering joy. Finn’s eyes flicked from Poe to the doorway behind him, where a dark figure stood, and he started to scream.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was so hard to write, especially the conversation between Poe and Ben. I really appreciate feedback and suggestions, since writing in this genre is so new to me. So much angst and more to come. Does it hurt to read? It hurts to write.


	3. Revelation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe is forced to confront the truth about Ben.

“You monster!” Finn was screaming and babbling in an almost incoherent mixture of hatred and fear. “What is he doing here, Poe? Get him away from me! Get him away!” He was clawing the IV lines from his arms, scrabbling at the bedding, and pushing himself against the far wall of his pod. BB-8 beeped in high-pitched alarm.

Medics and nurses ran in, trying to sedate Finn and usher Poe from the room, but Finn grabbed Poe, and wouldn’t let him go.

“It’s OK, buddy,” Poe told him. “I’ve got you.”

“Kylo Ren was here. He was here. He was standing right there.” Finn couldn’t stop shaking.

“No,” soothed Poe, but the icy water was rising up from his belly to his chest, “that was just Ben.” But even as he spoke, he felt the double-exposure of his memory resolving itself into one clear image. His recollection of that low mocking voice, that tall, slightly stooped posture, the fingers reaching out to tear open his mind, overlaid the images of Ben laughing, Ben slouching in a doorway, Ben touching him with gentle hands. The acrid tang of bile rose in Poe’s throat.

“He came to kill me. He came to finish what he started.” Finn was sobbing. He clung to Poe, and Poe hugged him back as though his warmth could save him from the floodtide.

*

Poe awoke to the sound of raised voices. Rey and Leia were in Finn’s room and Rey was shouting, actually shouting, at the general. “How could you let him come near Finn? Or Poe? I knew he was on the base, but I thought you would have the common sense to keep him away from them!” No one ever talked to General Organa like that. Poe’s neck hurt from sleeping in the chair next to Finn’s pod. As promised, he had stayed with him. In truth, he had not wanted to be in his apartment where _that creature, that murderer, that nightmare_ might come looking for him.

“I’m sorry I woke you.” Rey crouched down next to Poe as he scrubbed the sleep from his eyes. He knew he must look like hell.

“When did you get here?” BB-8 was chirruping excitedly at Rey’s feet, delighted to have her back.

“I flew in as soon as I felt Finn wake up. Are you all right?”

“Not really. I never saw Ren’s face. I didn’t recognize him.” Poe spoke mostly to himself.

“You didn’t know he was Kylo Ren?”

“I thought he was someone else.” He looked up and met Leia’s eyes. “You should have told me.”

Rey looked from one to the other, reading the loaded gaze and slipping into the currents of thought that ran beneath it. “You knew him from before,” she said to Poe. “You loved him.” Poe nodded. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know you were with Kylo Ren.”

“Neither did I,” Poe acknowledged ruefully in a pallid imitation of his usual wry humor.

“Let’s give Finn and Rey a few minutes to themselves,” said Leia turning to Poe. He followed her into the hallway and sat next to her on a metal bench. His head was pounding and his hands were shaking. The general spoke a few words to one of her guards and moments later he reappeared with a cup of caf for each of them and two headache tablets for Poe.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Poe asked.

“I tried to warn you, but I didn’t think it was my place. I hoped _he_ would.”

“You were relying on the common decency of a mass-murdering psychopath?” He could see how his words cut her, but right then he didn’t care.

“I have never had good judgment when it comes to my son.”

“He _tortured_ me. He tore my mind apart. What did you think would happen when I found out who he was?”

“You loved each other so much when you were young, and nobody I know has a bigger heart than you, Poe. I thought maybe you could both find happiness.”

“You somehow thought this might work out?” Poe let his head fall to his hands. “Why is he even here? He’s a war criminal. He should be standing trial.”

Leia leaned back against the cement block wall and took a sip of her own caf. “After he killed,” she took a deep breath, “after he killed his father, he was stricken by guilt and he reached out to me. He agreed to spy for the Resistance. We arranged for him to transmit information on the inner workings of the First Order for months until he sensed that Snoke was becoming suspicious. Then we met him on Ilum when we liberated the prison colony there.”

“And that’s that? The slate is wiped clean? He spends 15 years terrorizing the galaxy and it’s ‘Welcome home, Ben, have your boyfriend back?’”

“The information he provided us is immeasurable. It may win us the war. I was able to negotiate an amnesty for him in return.”

“And you think that’s fair? I don’t know how you can even have him in your house.”

Leia looked tired and worn, all of a sudden, and Poe found his anger at her ebbing away. “He’s my son, and I love him. I know I failed him badly, and that Snoke seduced him, but most days I can hardly stand to look at him.”

*

Poe was grateful when Finn, discharged from the medical center, and Rey accompanied BB-8 and himself back to his apartment. The sky was just becoming pale and birds were calling back and forth among the trees. Poe’s eyes felt like they were full of sand. The sleepless dawn cast blue shadows across the base’s boxy cement buildings, making them look surreal.

Poe grabbed a pillow and a blanket and flopped down on his sofa, leaving the bed for Finn and Rey. He tried to sleep. His skin felt itchy and too tight, and he thought of that masked creature who was also Ben touching him tenderly, kissing him passionately, speaking of love. That thing had lain in his bed and held him while he slept, knowing that it had torn his mind apart. Poe closed his eyes and the swirling void swallowed him. He had tripped over the event horizon into a black hole and, in the one infinitesimal microsecond of his remaining life, he would forever spiral into the abyssal starless dark. “Poe, wake up,” Rey’s warm hands on his shoulders shook him from his endless fall, and then she led him to his own bed. Lying safe between Finn and Rey, he finally drifted into peaceful sleep.

It was dark again when Poe awoke, alone in the bed. Aromas of vegetables sautéing in oil and baking bread drifted into his room, and his stomach rumbled and reminded him that he had not eaten in a day and a half. He walked into the kitchen to see Rey busily stirring a pan filled with mushrooms, potatoes, protein cubes and some red fleshy vegetable he couldn’t identify. Finn sat and watched her, his face glowing. Rey must have gone out for supplies while he slept. The fruit bowl on the counter was overflowing with exotic produce: spiky orange meilooruns, purple jogans, and golden-skinned shuuras.

“How are you feeling?” She turned around and smiled.

“Better for some real sleep.”

Finn poured him a glass of wine. The bottle was one Ben had brought over several nights earlier. “Are you sure they cleared you to leave the med center?” Poe asked, noticing the small tremor in Finn’s hands.

“Yeah, apparently I was getting physiotherapy the whole time I was under, so I’m almost as good as new. Anyway, I had to get out of there. It felt so _institutional_.” He shuddered. “This,” he indicated Rey’s activity, “is the first time someone has ever cooked me a home made meal.” Poe smiled at Finn’s whole-hearted delight in something so simple.

“It smells fantastic,” Poe said as Rey dished up the meal.

“Luke has been teaching me to cook.”

“You mean we went to all that trouble over a map so a Jedi master could give you _cooking_ _lessons_?” Finn asked incredulously. BB-8 twittered in amusement.

Rey lit candles (since when did Poe have candles?) and brought the dishes to the table. Sitting there in the circle of yellow light with the food, and his friends, and the straightforward joy they took in each other, Poe felt warm for the first time in weeks. Safe.

They were finishing their main course, sopping up the vegetable juices with their bread, when Rey sat bolt upright. “It’s him,” she announced a moment before a knock sounded at the door.

Poe shook his head. “I can’t.” She nodded and leapt up from the table, stomping across the room and flinging open the door.

“What do you want?” she spat.

“I just want to talk to Poe,” Kylo Ren spoke in Ben’s soft rounded voice.

“He doesn’t want to see you. Leave now.”

The man made to shoulder past her into the apartment, but, with a sudden buzzing whoosh, his way was blocked by Rey’s deep green lightsaber. It glowed calmly, like a forest world – Takodana or Yavin-4. Ben’s face was illuminated in the emerald light, as though underwater.

Finn rose from the table and walked over to join her in the doorway. “Are you looking for a rematch?” He taunted. “Because it didn’t go so well for you last time.”

“I just wanted to apologize to Poe.” He stared at him from the doorway. Poe looked away from his unblinking gaze.

“What, the rest of us don’t get apologies?” asked Finn.

Then, for the first time Poe could think of, Ben walked away from a fight.

*

“How do you feel?” Rey’s small hand grasped his own.

“Like all the breath has been stolen from my lungs. Like someone has shot out my engines, and the controls are dead. I'm hurtling toward the earth, spinning over and over, the air is on fire, and the ground is rushing up to meet me.” Poe sighed, “so basically, not great.” He contemplated the candlelight gleaming on the garnet liquid in his glass. “What feels worst is actually the sweetness – he looked at me with so much love in his eyes. He touched me like I meant everything to him.”

“Your first love returns from the dead, but then turns out to be the vicious maniac who tortured you,” Finn shook his head. “I can’t imagine.”

“I think deep down I knew it wasn’t Ben anymore. I wanted it to be, _so badly_ , but he scared me, and my Ben never did. But even my Ben must have had the seeds of Kylo Ren growing inside him. Darth Vader was his grandfather. Snoke was in his head.”

“I think,” mused Finn, “that, regardless of where we come from, or what is done to us, we can choose who we become.”

*

Poe walked up the slope with leaden feet. “I’ll be right here,” Rey tapped the hilt of the saber that hung from her belt, “if you need me.”

“I don’t need a bodyguard. He won’t try to hurt me.”

Rey raised a skeptical eyebrow. “He doesn’t have a very good track record.”

It was a perfect late summer day, blue and pale gold, with a light breeze. A day for flying, Poe thought, wishing he was soaring over the puffy white clouds in Black One, instead of trudging up the small hill that overlooked the base.

Rey squeezed his arm and let him continue alone, towards the figure that loomed, like a carrion bird, at the top of the hill.

“Poe,” said the dark shape quietly.

“What do I even call you?”

“Ben. I’m still Ben.”

“You haven’t been him for a very long time.”

“Sit with me?” The man sank gracefully to the ground, and Poe sat at arm’s length, facing forward. The base looked like a model from here or a toy.

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

“I wanted to say sorry. Poe, please look at me.”

“Sorry?” asked Poe, finally turning to face the monster with Ben Solo’s face. “You kill Lor San Tekka in cold blood, you torture me and Rey, you try to kill Finn, you kill your own father, you destroy the _entire Hosnian system_ , and you want to say _sorry_?”

“I didn’t destroy the Hosnian system.”

“You let it happen. You could have stopped it.”

“I would have been killed.”

“Maybe, but that’s a risk you could have taken to save _billions_ of people. Don’t you think that’s a risk I take every time I fly into battle?”

“I’m not a hero like you, Poe.”

“No you’re a coward. I am just a pilot. You are strong and powerful. You should be so much more than me, and instead you are nothing. Less than nothing.”

“You have no idea how much I regret it. All of it.”

“I don’t honestly care. Look at yourself. Defending your actions even now. You haven’t returned to the light, you’ve just found a different way to be dark.”

“That’s not true. I’m trying, Poe. I’m doing my best.” His mobile face was wracked with sorrow. Poe looked away, forcing himself to be impassive.

“And lying to me was part of that?”

“No, I meant to tell you. I tried. It was just so hard. I didn’t want to lose you.”

“It’s all about you, isn’t it? Did you ever think that maybe I had a right to know what was sleeping in my bed? You let me think you were dead for 15 years, you tortured me, and then you came back to fuck with my mind some more.” Poe found his voice trembling and his eyes damp.

“I didn’t want to torture you. I took no pleasure in it.”

“You knew it was me, and you _still_ did it.” Poe shook his head. “You had a choice. You could have picked me up and carried me out of there. I would have done that for you. I would have done that for anyone, but you especially. Do you understand, I would have gladly suffered in your place? That's what love is, Ben. Have you ever cared about anything other than yourself?”

“I love you, Poe. I always loved you.”

“That’s not love. It’s adolescent infatuation. You would never deliberately hurt and deceive someone you truly loved. I’m just sad that you can’t tell the difference, and that even now you are lying to me and to yourself.” He turned away, his eyes stinging. “I wish I had never met you.”

“You said you loved me. That you would love me no matter what.” Ben's large expressive eyes were filled with emotion. He reached out to Poe with a tentative hand, as though afraid to touch him. Poe stood to leave and Ben's hand closed on a fistful of air. Poe looked down at the man who called himself Ben.

“I was in love with a memory and a lie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos and comments on the earlier chapters. Sorry this chapter is so dark (you saw the angst tags, right?). There will be a little smidgen of comfort in the next one.


	4. Reckoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe - full of grief, anger, and confusion - confronts his conflicted feelings about Ben.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a second of fantasy dub-con (if you squint?). Please tell me if you think it needs an archive warning, since I don’t want to trigger anyone.

Poe’s chest-clawing grief slowly ebbed, and he was shrouded in a dense fog, lanced by startling flashes of pain when the bright knife of memory pierced his mind. He would recall Ben’s smile – how it illuminated and transformed his whole face – and feel like he had been kicked in the stomach. He ached for Ben to return to being an old memory, a static holograph, a firefly flicker long burned out.

In weak moments (late at night, alone in his bed), he thought of Ben. He imagined going to him and shedding the skin of their shared histories. He could picture Ben’s eyes widen in surprise. Poe would lie on top of him, clutching handfuls of hair or holding his forearm against his throat, pushing him down, and forcing his tongue into his mouth. “Please,” whispered the ghost of Ben, and Poe didn’t know if he was begging him to continue or to stop. Then Ben was surging, thrusting against him, and they were struggling to strip the layers of clothing between them, craving each other’s touch. Poe’s mind supplied the details from his previous lovers – the velvet-hardness, the enveloping heat, the guttural moans – but it would be so much more desperate and devastating with Ben, his terrible, incandescent Ben, his heart and his desolation. The same words were tumbling from their mouths: “I love you,” and “don’t leave me.” Poe sobbed and came hard, biting his hand to muffle his cry.

Indulging in the fantasy was like picking the scab off a wound. Afterwards he lay, disconsolate, in the moonless hollow of the night.  

*

Poe’s life had been defined, until recently, by its clarity. Even his losses had been simple; his grief for his mother, for the young Ben, and for his fallen comrades had been overwhelming and whole-hearted. His chosen path had required courage, strength, and endurance. It had been difficult, but not complicated. He had no experience with the shadowlands of self-doubt. Now, he was torn, conflicted in his feelings toward Ben. When Poe yearned for Ben (his eyes, his hands, his voice), his mind assailed him with visions of Lor San Tekka, buried only by the wind and the sand, of bold, lovely Korr Sella exploded into light on Hosnian Prime, of Luke Skywalker’s padawans, of Han Solo.

Leia, the closest Poe had to a mother figure, offered no guidance. He didn’t know what it was to have a child and suffer that fierce protective love, but he felt betrayed by her complicity in Ben’s evasions. Should one extend mercy to the merciless? Did Snoke’s seduction absolve Ben of crimes in which he had been a willing participant? Could a monster change, and, if so, did he deserve forgiveness?

It was not only Leia’s choices that disturbed him, but his own. Ben’s shattered gaze haunted him. He could have taken away that anguish, but his blood had flowed with an unfamiliar cold rage. Ben had reached out and offered his love on the dying summer hillside, and Poe had twisted a honed stiletto blade of words: _I was in love with a memory and a lie_. Certainly Ben deserved as much, but Poe had not known himself capable of such cruelty.

Poe feared the silence of empty hours, when his thoughts became too loud, but he avoided company. He felt grey. Sleep was fitful and erratic. Some days, getting out of bed took all his energy. Leia had given Finn and Rey their own apartment on the base, but they appeared on his doorstep most days, often bringing food. They were not his oldest friends, but they understood; Kylo Ren cast his shadow over their lives too. Their kindness anchored him and reminded him of the inherent goodness of people, even those whose lives were blighted by deprivation and loss. Their fledgling love for each other gave him a pattern for how a relationship could be – something that made two people better, stronger, and happier.

Then, he was kept busy by a wave of aggression against the First Order. Previously, the Resistance had focused on obvious, urgent, and ideological assaults, aimed at freeing captive planets and prison ships, or destroying military installations. With the newly acquired information (Poe reluctantly acknowledged its source), they had broadened their strategy to include soft targets, attacking the black market emporia and ports that supported the First Order financially and disrupting key supply lines. It took the Order a surprisingly long time to realize the magnitude of the intelligence breach. No doubt they knew that Kylo Ren had defected, rather than being captured on Ilum, but apparently no one had suspected him of accessing their mainframes with anything other than a lightsaber. Under the guidance of the general’s technological experts, he had been able to collect and transmit a wide range of information on the Order’s operations and security protocols.

The Resistance needed to strike quickly, while they had the advantage, and Commander Dameron was happy to lead the missions. Flying, he felt like himself: clear and certain. He could forget his dark desires and his misgivings. Stars blurring into light speed, his fighter splintering sunlight across its wings, a trail of bright destruction in his wake – these were the things that made his blood sing. He was alive.

*

“I know I have no right to ask anything of you,” the general began, “let alone anything regarding my son.”

“But you are going to anyway,” Poe leaned forward in the chair.

“I am. It is very difficult for a force user to find a way back to the light. I believe that my – that Anakin Skywalker chose to hasten his own death rather than confront the consequences of all the evil he had done.”

“Am I supposed to be sympathetic?”

“No, but perhaps you will do it for me?”

“Do what?”

“Ben is miserable, Poe. He won’t eat, he won’t bathe, he won’t leave his room. Will you talk to him? I can’t reach him, but you might.”

Angry as he had been with the general, she was still like a second mother to him and she had already lost so much. “I will, but for you, not him,” he told her, and it was half true.

*

“You disgust me,” Poe sneered, walking into the slovenly bedroom. There were tissues and water glasses everywhere, and plates congealed with untouched food. The lump in the bed curled further in on itself.

“Go away,” came the muffled response.

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you,” Poe commanded, using the voice he reserved for particularly recalcitrant trainee pilots.

Ben clawed his way out of the bedding, sitting up and glaring. He looked dreadful. His usually immaculate hair was greasy and tangled, his pale face blotchy and puffy. The redness emphasized the size of his nose. A wave of pity washed over Poe and he felt his anger bleeding away. 

“You’re a mess.”

“Did you just come here to abuse me?”

“I came here because your mother asked me and she deserves better than this snivelling disgrace of a son.”

“Stop, Poe, you’re not helping.” Ben looked up at him with pleading eyes. “You have no idea what this is like. I can feel them, every one of them, each one of the souls screaming and then blinking out. I see their faces.” He rubbed his hands roughly over his eyes. “And his face. I see my father’s face when he knew he was already dead – he touched me, Poe, he touched me like he still loved me, and then he fell."

“Look at yourself. It’s _still_ all about you. You let billions of people die, Ben, each as real and alive as you or I, and you killed who knows how many others in cold blood, and all you can do is lie there crying about how bad that makes _you_ feel.” Poe spoke harshly, shoving down the awful sympathy, the crumpled paper feeling in his chest.

“There’s nothing I can do. It’s too late. The dead can’t forgive.”

“You can’t do anything for them, but there are others. There’s a whole galaxy that needs protection, and you – perhaps the most powerful force user of all – you’re lying here, wallowing in self-pity like a melodramatic child.”

“What can I do?” Ben put his head in his hands.

“Get out of bed, train, train others, destroy the First Order fleet, free the Storm Troopers and send them back to their home planets, kill Snoke.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It’s not easy, but it is simple.” Poe sat down on the rumpled bed and finally reached out to touch Ben’s face. A powerful undertow was dragging him towards the man. He held fast against it and felt something inside himself twist and break apart.

Ben closed his eyes and leaned into his hand. Poe wanted nothing more than to draw the man to him, wrap him in his arms, and kiss his eyelids. He wanted to run him a warm bath and wash his hair. He wanted to block out the rest of the world and pretend that only the two of them existed, and that they could love without consequences.

“Become someone I am proud to know, the person you _should_ have been, someone _you_ can be proud of.” Poe leaned in and kissed Ben’s forehead. He lingered for a moment, lips against warm skin, and then he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't really happy with chapter 3 (too bleak, not poetic, doesn't get deeply enough inside Poe's experience). For this chapter, I tried thinking about my own experiences of loss, betrayal, and grief, and those of others (Poe is in a unique situation for which I couldn't find an exact parallel). I drew on C.S. Lewis's _A Grief Observed_ , on which the film Shadowlands was based (I know, that allusion is not so subtle).  
> Writing this story has been very difficult, because this genre such a new thing for me, and your comments have been incredibly helpful in giving me direction and pointing out what works and also what doesn't. Thank you.


	5. Recompense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe's feelings and impulses toward Ben are more complicated than he knows, and he has had too much to drink.

“I wish you were coming with us,” Jess confided in Poe. Commander Solo knows his stuff, but it just seems strange going on a mission without you."

“You and Snap will do great,” Poe assured her. “Anyway, I don’t think I’m supposed to know about it. It’s all been very hush-hush.”

“Oh yes, very confidential,” Jess rolled her eyes and took another sip of her drink. “Huge veil of secrecy around everything Solo touches.”

“How has it been, working with him?” Poe’s curiosity got the better of him.

“Fine, you know. Good. I mean I think we were expecting the worst, since he was, well – you know don’t you?” She glanced nervously around _The Wingman_. Most of Blue and Red squadron was there, throwing back beers and exchanging tall stories with the visiting squadron from the Resistance base on Utapau, but no one was close enough to overhear.

“Yes, I do know.”

“Right, so we – Snap, the special ops troops, and I – were all a bit terrified, to be honest, but he’s been very level headed, and practical.”

“I’m very pleased to hear that. How’s he with the strategic side of things?”

“Funny you ask that, because he acknowledged that isn’t really his strength, so he brought in Admiral Statura to work on it.” Jess narrowed her eyes. “Wait, you knew Solo before, didn’t you?”

“Yes. He used to visit Yavin 4 with his parents, and then he trained at the Jedi temple there, so I saw a lot of him growing up.”

“And yet the general never includes you both in the same briefings. Why is that?” Poe could see the wheels turning in her mind.

“Trust me, you never want to ask that. Of either of us.”

The band was setting up, and Jess wandered off to chat to the drummer, whom she vaguely knew. Poe had another drink, and then a third, and tried not to think about Ben’s top-secret mission the following week. He had seen the man at a distance on the base, but had successfully avoided crossing paths with him. He was pleased that he was taking such an active role the Resistance, but also been relieved that the general did not expect them to work together.

“So, Commander Dameron, can I buy you a drink?” Wade Jarrus, leader of the Utapau squadron, interrupted his thoughts. Jarrus looked like he spent his life in sunshine. He had bronzed skin, dark honey-golden hair and intense turquoise eyes that crinkled up when he smiled.

“If you promise to call me Poe. Now that we’re done with training.”

“I think I can remember that,” Wade grinned. A tiny coil of attraction unfurled in Poe’s belly. It was the first time since Ben’s return that he had felt that for anyone else. “So what do flyboys do for fun around here?”

“Bomb the First Order, mostly.”

“And what about you? Wade slid the brandy over to Poe, brushing his knuckles lightly. “What does the Commander do when he’s not performing heroic feats?” Wade raised his voice over the band’s watered-down reggae.

Poe laughed at the shameless flattery. “I’m very dull, actually. I work on my droid, watch holovids, cook dinner for my friends.”

“That sounds a bit lonely.”

“Not really.”

“No one special in your life?”

“There are lots of special people in my life,” Poe smiled, thinking of Finn and Rey, Jess and Snap, the general.

“But no one keeping you warm on the cold winter nights?”

“It doesn’t get cold here,” said Poe, deliberately obtuse.

“Blast it, Poe, I’m trying to get you to invite me over,” laughed Wade, squeezing his hand and leaving his warm dry fingers lightly resting there.

“I know, I’m just making you work for it.”

“Trust me, no one is going to call you easy. Half my squadron’s been flirting with you for the past week, and you haven’t noticed.”

“I’ve been a bit distracted.” Poe smiled apologetically. He regarded Wade. His teeth were improbably even. His features were almost perfectly symmetrical and his ears were small. He seemed kind and, objectively, he was very attractive. Poe considered taking him home and enjoying him. He could take pleasure, and give it in return, as he had done with many other lovers. It would be a reprieve from the world: intimate and respectful and mercifully finite. He longed to release the tightly strung tension in his shoulders, to unbind the knots in his chest, to give voice, or at least distraction, to the awful need trilling high and loud in his blood. He wanted to touch and laugh and come, hard, in someone else’s body.

“Who is that?” asked Wade, interrupting his thoughts for a second time. He indicated the morose figure glaring at them from across the room.

“ _That_ is a very good question.”

“Is he your ex? He looks like he is going to murder me from where he sits.”

“He might, actually. I should go talk to him.”

“So, not such an ex then. Too bad, I was hoping we might have some fun.” Wade looked rueful.

For one moment, Poe wanted nothing more than that. He had sacrificed enough crawling across shards of glass to Ben Solo. A tiny cruel part of him wanted to leave with Wade precisely to punish Ben for all the pain he had caused, to show him that Poe had moved on and had a life without him, even if that was only half true. But the broken way Ben had glowered at them jolted some deep part of his mind that would not be denied – that he did not wish to deny.

“Sorry,” shrugged Poe as he rose from his bar stool, just slightly unsteady on his legs. “Unfinished business.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Ben grumbled as Poe sat down across the table.

“No.”

“I thought you were going to leave with the flyboy.”

“I couldn’t do that to you. Not in front of you.” He regarded the anomalous sight of Ben, clad in his usual dark charcoal grey, hunched over a tiny table in the increasingly raucous bar. He looked like a particularly sullen steel-eating bird. “What are you doing here anyway? You never come out.”

“I wanted to see you before I left.”

“Before the extra classified mission no one will tell me about?”

“Right.”

“Well, Commander Solo,” Poe grinned cheekily at him, “may the Force be with you.”

“Ugggh, don’t start with that Jedi crap,” he growled, but he was looking down and smiling shyly, like he was pleased. Poe felt his treacherous heart twist in his chest. His repressed yearning for Ben rose like a dark tide.

“I hear you’re doing an excellent job.”

“Who tells you that?

“I have spies everywhere.”

“Pava then? She’s great. Wexley too.”

“They are.” Poe smiled. It seemed so familiar, so easy, sitting here at the table talking to Ben. There was none of the strange creeping anxiety he had felt during their recent relationship, only a deep, thrumming desire; Kylo Ren, brought out into the light, was somehow less terrifying than he had been hidden in Ben’s shadow. “And I know you’re going to do great.” He reached for Ben’s hand. Where they touched, a crackling electric tension thrilled through his veins. Ben glanced up, surprised but also open, vulnerable, and Poe felt his resistance crumble and fall like a sandcastle into the sea. “Do you want to go somewhere quieter? Where we can talk?”

As soon as they left the bar, Ben pounced. Poe expected to be shoved into the wall and kissed viciously, but instead Ben clung to him, hugging him in an iron grip, burying his face in Poe’s hair. “Ben,” he gasped wriggling to free himself, “Ben, I can’t breathe.”

“Sorry.” Ben released him in a hurry.

“It’s OK.” He took Ben’s hand – and suddenly they were boys again, Ben’s large familiar hand enfolding Poe’s – and led him home.

It was the first time Ben had been to Poe’s apartment since Rey had blocked his way with her saber months before. Poe felt suddenly and uncharacteristically shy. “Sit,” he indicated the sofa. “I’ll get some wine.” He stumbled to the kitchen.

Poe was opening the bottle when a knock sounded at the door. He opened it to reveal Finn and Rey. “Hi, old friend,” Finn greeted him, emphasizing “old” a little, as he liked to do.

Rey shoved a foil-covered casserole dish into his hands. “We figured you probably hadn’t eaten.” She made to push past him into the apartment.

“Actually now isn’t a good time.” Poe stepped into her path.

“What? _Oh_.” Rey smiled. “Not that pretty Captain Jarrus is it?” She craned her head to see who was in Poe’s living space and the smile slid sideways off her face. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” She and Finn exchanged an almost comically horrified look.

“We’re both adults, Rey.”

“I know,” she said sadly, reaching out and gently tousling Poe’s hair. “We’re always here if you need us. _Any_ time. And if he hurts you,” she raised her voice, clearly meaning to be overheard, “I will fucking murder him.”

“Your friends still don’t like me,” sighed Ben as Poe set the glasses down on the coffee table, only sloshing a little wine over the sides.

Poe shrugged and sank back down onto the sofa. “Doesn’t matter.” He reached out to run his thumb over Ben’s lips. Ben opened his mouth and licked at the digit.

Ben leaned in and kissed him, impossibly sweetly. Ben had been many things in Poe’s experience – tentative and reticent, yes, but never so gentle. Poe arched into the kiss, trying to deepen it, but Ben cupped his face and held him still, continuing with his maddeningly tender assault.

Poe groaned and pushed Ben down onto the sofa, straddling him, tangling his hands roughly in his hair and kissing him hard.

Ben gently pushed him back, “Poe Dameron,” he whispered, his eyes filled with a blazing unspeakable softness. Poe closed his eyelids against the intensity of Ben’s gaze and got up off him, holding out a hand. “Come on. Bedroom, now.”

Poe shoved Ben onto the bed and leapt on top of him, tearing at his clothing and biting at the newly revealed flesh. A distant part of his swimmy mind warned him that this might not be a good idea, but he squashed it down. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted this?” he snarled into Ben’s neck.

“Yes!” laughed Ben, "I really do.” He pulled Poe’s shirt over his head and ran his hands over Poe's back.

“You’re so beautiful.” Poe raked his nails down Ben’s bare chest, leaving raised red marks, and then bit his neck hard. Ben gasped. Poe pulled at his leggings, pushing them down with his underwear, and then raised himself up enough to flip Ben over, pulling him onto his knees, one hand in his hair, dragging his head back, the other leaving bruising fingerprints on his hip. Poe, still partially clad, thrust against him brutally, making his intentions clear.

“Poe, no, not like this.”

“Why not? Don’t you like it rough, _Kylo_?”

They stilled, as the name hung between them in the air. Ben dropped onto his belly and rolled out from under Poe. He found his abused clothing, put it on, and left in silence.

Poe lay among the rumpled sheets. The room was spinning around him and an inchoate keening pain clawed its way out of his hollow chest. A heavy chemical darkness fell upon him and he slept.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wade is a relative of Kanan Jarrus from Rebels.
> 
> Also, I am so sorry for adding more angst to the angst fest that is this fic. There will be a bit of comfort for all this hurt SOON.


	6. Reconciliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe meditates on what he has lost and remembers who he used to be.

Poe awoke to a series of disapproving beeps and trills as BB-8 rolled himself repeatedly into the bed frame. He could tell by the yellow intensity of light that he had slept late. A jackhammer was pounding inside his head and when he forced himself to sit up, his throat felt like it was full of tadpoles. A powerful wave of nausea slammed into him sideways, and he staggered to the bathroom to vomit up a sour burning slurry of brandy and stomach acid.

He took twice the recommended dosage of painkillers and crawled into the shower, collapsing under the hot water. As the headache receded, fragments of the previous night assembled themselves into a blurry picture: flirting with Wade, bringing Ben home, Ben’s unbearable gentleness, and Poe’s own – what was it? – enraged lust? He had been so turned on, but also disgusted with himself for it. He couldn’t be sure: a pane of thick wavy glass obscured his memory. He could see colors and shapes, but his own motivations were blurry. He had wanted Ben and had also wanted to punish him. He had been unbearably aroused by the idea of Kylo Ren at his mercy, meek, submissive, and hurting beneath him. He had called him Kylo. _Kylo_. And then Ben had left. Poe groaned and covered his face with his hands. An unfamiliar emotion devoured him: shame. It crushed his chest and made it hard to breathe. Before Ben’s return, Poe had never experienced a distance between his ideals and his actions. He had never failed to live up to his own standards. He forced himself to stand and stagger out as the water ran cold.

Poe was going to be late to work anyway, so he might as well have the second cup of caf. He briefly hoped he wouldn’t encounter Ben on the base before his mission. Shame and now cowardice. What a morning. _You need to be better than this_ , he told himself. _You need to find him and apologize_.

He had barely set foot on the base when a panicked Jess Pava accosted him. “You’ve got to stop him, before he destroys everything!” She dragged him by the arm into the warren of rooms attached to the main hangar and up three flights of stairs. “I don’t know what’s wrong. All I know is that I saw Solo leave with you last night, and now he’s lost it.” She lowered her voice to a frantic whisper, “he’s gone completely Kylo Ren.” Poe could hear things shattering. As she pulled him along the corridor on the uppermost level, the sounds became louder, along with the unmistakable thrum of a lightsaber. They stopped in front of the large repair room that often doubled as meeting space. It was filled with workbenches, tools, and parts, and was open along the far wall, overlooking the main hangar, connected to the other repair and maintenance rooms by a crisscrossed network of walkways.

Through the open doorway, Poe could see Ben standing in the middle of a pile of ruined furniture and equipment. In his right hand, he held the crackling red saber. He leapt and slashed the erratic blade through a shelving unit, sending its contents crashing to the floor, and then spun around to scorch vicious runes into the wall behind him. Poe stood transfixed by Ben’s grace and violence. He was dangerous, uncontrolled, and _magnificent_. “Go,” he told Jess, “You too, BB-8. I’ll take care of this.” BB-8 chirped in alarm, but rolled obediently after Jess.

“Ben!”

The man stilled and wheeled to face the doorway. His face was gnarled with rage. Poe had no doubt that this was Ben’s dark side. Even without the ridiculous mask, this was Kylo Ren.

“What do you want?” He demanded. He was facing Poe, holding his weapon in both hands. It was a posture of attack or defense.

“Put down the saber so we can talk,” Poe spoke calmly even though his heart was pumping a firefight’s worth of adrenalin through his veins.

“Leave me alone!” Ben shouted, sounding more like a teenager than a dark lord.

“I want to apologize for last night,” Poe walked slowly into the room, making no sudden movements, as though Ben were a scared animal. “Please let me.”

“Just GO AWAY!” Ben screamed. His eyes were wet and the blade was shaking in his hands. He spun around and fled from the room, out along the narrow walkway.

Poe hurried after him. For the first time he felt a spasm of true fear. _This was how Han Solo died_. Rey and Finn had told him about it in detail. He knew that Ben loved him – at least in his own way – but Ben had already shown that he could kill what he loved. Poe was suddenly certain of two things: first, that real darkness still warred with the light in Ben and, second, that if Ben killed him, he would be lost to the dark side forever. His fractured soul would be unable to sustain the second murder of a loved one, and he would be irrevocably broken.

The durasteel bridge was shaking from Ben’s rapid footfalls. Poe did not have the Force to guide him, and even his own heart – once so constant – had become a stupid feral creature battering uselessly against its cage. He was surely as lost and broken as Ben. He inched down the gangway.

“Sweetheart!” he called, a pet name he hadn’t used in 15 years. His sweaty hands were clenched at his sides. “I’m so sorry.” Poe felt sick and shaky from caf and adrenaline.

Ben halted and turned to face him. “You’re sorry that you called me Kylo? As if I don’t deserve a thousand times worse.” He snarled. “As if it isn’t true.”

“It doesn’t matter what you deserve, Ben, you don’t deserve that _from me_. Come here. Please. We’ll talk.”

Ben reached out a gloved hand and twisted it. Poe felt a startling rush in the front of his mind, as if a large bird flew too close to his face, the soft blade of its wing slashing his forehead, vivisecting his thoughts.

“You love the memory of me, but you wish you didn’t.” Ben’s speech became calmer as he sliced through the maelstrom of Poe’s feelings. Ben pushed into his mind harder – now not a raptor’s wings, but its talons, shredding his thoughts with ragged claws. Poe gasped, pushing back futilely against the invasion. “You are so ashamed. You are obsessed with me and you hate yourself because of it. You want me, and you’re angry at me, _and_ you want to take care of me.” Ben shook his head. “You’re a mess. I don’t know how one person lives with all of that.” His voice had the faintest tinge of amusement in it, reminding Poe of Kylo Ren during his interrogation. He didn’t know if this version of Ben – quietly flaying open his soul to reveal his innermost torments – was more or less terrifying than the raging beast he had been moments before.

The residual hangover and the invasion of his mind swirled together in his head. He howled from the mangling pain and from the churning wrongness of having someone else delving deeper and deeper into his thoughts. “STOP IT!” he shouted, “it hurts!” He swayed dangerously on the bridge.

Suddenly he was being swept up in strong arms and deposited on the workroom floor. Ben’s large hands were cupping his face, and his eyes were full of anguish, all trace of anger and mockery gone. “I’m sorry, Poe. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Ben leaned his forehead against Poe’s and Poe felt a gentle soothing rush through his mind, like an evening breeze through the leaves, like cool water in summer. The pain and nausea receded before it and Poe was left drained but clear headed.

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

“I didn’t either. It’s a new thing.” Ben drew back from him, and Poe crumpled, dropping his head into his hands.

Ben’s evisceration of his mind had pulled back the skin and laid open the tangled bloody mess for Poe to see. He had, for months now, longed for the clarity of his previous life when had been so brave, and certain, so practical and full of fire. He had actually laughed in the face of danger. He recalled kneeling on the sands of Jakku before Kylo Ren: _Who talks first? I talk first? You talk first?_

 _I’ve had enough_ , Poe realized. _Enough sorrow and shame_. He could walk into the inferno, or he could leave, but he couldn’t live this shadow life anymore. He could choose. The old uncomplicated Poe would have walked up to Ben on that narrow bridge and kissed him passionately (flickering saber be damned), or he would have stormed off without a backward look. That Poe was gone – not broken, but transmuted. His formerly smooth bright surface was now a craquelure of hairline fractures, like a map, an intimate geography of heartbreak and self-doubt. Poe had lived in a world of sharply defined oppositions: good and evil, love and hate, hope and despair. Now he understood that each might abide within the other, that to be human was to be chaotic and confused, and that love required not perfection but forgiveness. This Poe, who had gazed upon the darkness inside himself and his beloved, could be both resolute _and_ gentle.

He stood up, only a little shakily. “I’m going to take the day off work,” he announced. “You might as well too. You’re hardly going to get in _more_ trouble.”

Ben graced him with the slightest hint of a smile. “I suppose you’re right.” He looked as exhausted as Poe felt.

“Leave a note,” Poe indicated the whiteboard, which was miraculously mostly intact. “ Something like ‘I’m sorry about the mess, I’ll be back later to clean it up.’”

Ben stared at him incredulously. “I’m not leaving a note.”

“It’s not the First Order. We don’t have underlings to clean things up.” Poe rolled his eyes and Ben picked up a marker.

Ben followed Poe through the hallways and down the stairs, half a step behind. They walked beyond the base and into the forest. The winter air was sharp and dry and the evergreens were bright deep green. Poe led them out to the waterfall; he sat down on a large flat rock and Ben sat next to him. “I used to come out here all the time to think, when you first returned,” Poe looked at the other man. “I would just listen to the water and let it calm me, let it hush all the voices in my mind.” The rock was slightly damp and Poe could feel the cold seeping into his bones, but it didn’t bother him.

“Like meditation.”

“Something like that.” Poe reached over and took Ben’s hand, interlacing their fingers. Ben squeezed back and, for a long time, they sat, still beside the rushing water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How hard do I make you work for a simple hand holding? The angst tax is high.  
> This chapter was very hard to write, because I had versions where they were both collapsing crying in each others' arms (ugh, too wet) or where Poe was passionately kissing Ben on the bridge (ugh, when Ben had just invaded his mind -- they really still need to set up some boundaries around that). Anyway, you get hand holding. Wow has this fic ever had a dearth of smut. I might have to write an all fluff and smut sequel.  
> Also, I just decided that they have whiteboards in Star Wars. They must, right? The First Order would definitely have them.


End file.
